Over Easter, I met up with an acquaintance, and we went to the cinema together.

Since then, our friendship has just grown and grown, and has fully blossomed into something neither of us quite expected.

Elis, invited me to a party on Saturday night, at a venue in Stockholm, called Kapsylen.

It was a truly sparkling night, and we both really enjoyed what was an excellent party.

There were a number of bands playing, and we enjoyed those we managed to see.

The band I most enjoyed, were called Samling…..this is a sample of what we enjoyed at the gig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xnrxHaXu1c

Magical thinking can be plotted on a spectrum, with skeptics at one end and schizophrenics at the other. People who endorse magical ideation, ranging from the innocuous (occasional fear of stepping on sidewalk cracks) to the outlandish (TV broadcasters know when you’re watching), are more likely to have psychosis or develop it later in their lives. People who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder also exhibit elevated levels of paranoia, perceptual disturbances, and magical thinking, particularly “thought-action fusion,” the belief that your negative thoughts can cause harm. These people are compelled to carry out repetitive tasks to counteract their intrusive thoughts about unlocked doors or loved ones getting cancer. But more magical thinking does not necessarily mean more emotional problems—what counts is whether such thinking interferes with everyday functioning.

Psychology Today article 2008

What really resonated with me was the importance of  the statement that: “People should always be treated as ends in themselves.”

This is a quality in human beings I truly admire. Many friendships and relationships are based on what one individual wants or needs from another.

True friendships and relationships are purest, when we neither need or want anything from the other person, but we hold the other in high regard purely for the human being they are.

Difficulties arise when people treat other people as a means to some end, and not as ends in themselves.

Kant’s categorical imperative

The categorical imperative helps us to know which actions are obligatory and which are forbidden. Hypothetical imperatives are conditional: ‘If I want x then I must do y’. These imperatives are not moral. For Kant, the only moral imperatives were categorical: ‘I ought to do x”, with no reference to desires or needs.

There are three categorical imperatives.

1.      The universal law – All moral statements should be general laws, which apply to everyone under any circumstances. There should be no occasion under which an exception is made.

2.      Treat humans as ends in themselves – Kant argues that you should never treat people as a means to some end. People should always be treated as ends in themselves. This promotes equality.

3.      Act as if you live in a kingdom of ends – Kant assumed that all rational agents were able to deduce whether an argument was moral or not through reason alone and so, all rational humans should be able to conclude the same moral laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche

“I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?

“All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.

“Whoever is the wisest among you is also a mere conflict and cross between plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?

“Behold, I teach you the overman! The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!”

— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann

[F]or what constitutes the tremendous historical uniqueness of that Persian is just the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. [...] Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it. [...] His doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the “idealist” who flees from reality [...]—Am I understood?—The self-overcoming of morality, out of truthfulness; the self-overcoming of the moralist, into his opposite—into me—that is what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth.

— Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, “Why I Am a Destiny”, §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyJwbwWg8uc

It has been a long dark winter, and now, the sun is shining through, lighting the way ahead.

I finished work today, I now have 11 days to enjoy, and that starts this evening….busy schedule ahead Uppsala, then Finland…..

Really into the Black Keys at the moment……I love the notion of legacy, and Junior Kimbrough will never be dead, while these guys are flying the flag for the legacy that Junior left behind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBPGm4Fbo0Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shM3Nm-wRrs

Really brought a smile to my face…Thanks Roger.

~ News Release ~

CLARKSDALE, MS–Ida Mae Dobbs, longtime woman of Willie “Skipbone” Jackson, called a press conference Tuesday to respond to charges levied against her by the legendary Delta blues singer.

“Despite what Mr. Jackson would have you believe, I am not an evil-hearted woman who will not let him be,” Dobbs told reporters. “I repeat: I am not an evil-hearted woman who will not let him be. To the contrary, my lovin’ is so sweet, it tastes just like the apple off the tree.”

Dobbs, accused of causing Jackson pain and breaking his heart by calling out another man’s name, categorically denied treating him in a low-down manner.

“He says he sends for his baby, but I don’t come around,” Dobbs, a brownskin woman, said. “He says he sends for his baby, but I don’t come around. Well, the truth is, I do come, but he is out messing with every gal in town.”

During the press conference, Dobbs also disputed an Aug. 27 statement made by Jackson, who compared her to a dresser because someone is always going through her drawers.

“My drawers have not been gone through by any man but Willie “Skipbone” Jackson,” Dobbs said. “Neither Slim McGee nor Melvin Brown has ever been in my drawers. Nor has Sonny ‘Spoonthumb’ Perkins, nor any of those other no-good jokers down by the railroad tracks. My policy has always been to keep my drawers closed to everyone but Mr. Jackson, as I am his woman and would never treat him so unkind.”

In addition to denying Jackson’s drawer-opening allegations, Dobbs disputed charges of unrestricted sweet-potato-pie distribution, insisting that her pie is available only to Jackson.

“I do not give out my sweet potato pie arbitrarily, as I am not the sort of no-good doney who engages in such objectionable behavior,” Dobbs told reporters. “Only one man can taste my sweet potato pie, and I believe I have made it perfectly clear who that man is.” Dobbs noted that the same policy applies to her biscuits, which may be buttered only by Jackson.

While most of the accusations levied against Dobbs relate to her running around town with other men, she does face one far more serious charge, attempted homicide. On May 5, 1998, Jackson was rushed to the hospital and narrowly escaped death after ingesting nearly five ounces of gasoline. Jackson claimed that Dobbs tried to murder him, serving him a glass of the toxic fuel when he requested water. Dobbs dismissed the episode as “an accident.”

Dobbs, a short-dress, big-legged woman from Coahoma County, said it is not she but Jackson who should be forced to defend himself. According to Dobbs, Jackson frequently has devilment on his mind, staying up until all hours of the night rolling dice and drinking smokestack lightning.

“Six nights out of seven, he goes off and gets his swerve on while I sit at home by myself. Then he comes knocking on my door at 4 a.m., expecting me to rock him until his back no longer has any bone,” Dobbs said. “Is that any way for a man to treat his woman? I don’t want to, but if he keeps doing me wrong like this, I am going to take my lovin’ and give it to another man.”

Added Dobbs: “Skipbone Jackson is going to be the death of me.”

Dobbs said that until she receives an apology from Jackson and a full retraction of all accusations, he will not be given any grinding.

“Mr. Jackson says that I stay out all night and that I’m not talking right. He says he has rambling on his mind as a result of my treating him so unkind. He says I want every downtown man I meet and says they shouldn’t even let me on the street,” Dobbs said. “Well, I refuse to allow my name to be dragged through the mud like this any longer. Unless my man puts an end to these unfair attacks on my character, I will neither rock nor roll him to the break of dawn. I am through with his low-down ways.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvnvvzfKXC4

Flow wikipedia

“An autotelic person needs few material possessions and little entertainment, comfort, power, or fame because so much of what he or she does is already rewarding. Because such persons experience flow in work, in family life, when interacting with people, when eating, even when alone with nothing to do, they are less dependent on the external rewards that keep others motivated to go on with a life composed of routines. They are more autonomous and independent because they cannot be as easily manipulated with threats or rewards from the outside. At the same time, they are more involved with everything around them because they are fully immersed in the current of life.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzkCWJZHT3I

being the there, being Dasein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

I have to refocus on what my projects are for 2012.

“We are our projects”

if our personal projects are giving, positive, progressive then……….

if our personal projects are selfish, negative, regressive then……….

One can only strive to be as authentic as possible, given what life deals us.

Onward and upward